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> Or that Illustrator and Photoshop would be combined into a single app This is why I have been using Affinity. Very well done integration of vector and image

> Or that Illustrator and Photoshop would be combined into a single app This is why I have been using Affinity. Very well done integration of vector and image capabilities. However, their development has slowed significantly in recent years despite having a great product. I hope that Graphite can be something new and become the blender of 2D image editing. There is nothing really out there right now that has the professional features of paid applications.

benterix 3y ago
> their development has slowed significantly in recent years despite having a great product. Did they comment on why this happened?
- 13years 3y ago
  They have not, although I expect it is simply a matter of expanding their products over the years, technical debt and they probably have not generated enough revenue to grow the team. They are now working on the most important feature in my opinion for the life of Affinity products. They are finally adding built in scripting support that will also enable development of 3rd part extensions. Hopefully this will bring new life and excitement to Affinity.
junon 3y ago
Affinity is mismanaged and their developers have posted very publicly about being miserable there. The applications are buggy on a good day, unusable on bad days. The premise sounded nice when I first started using them but I cannot in good conscience recommend either of them to anyone at this point.
- jansan 3y ago
  Can you give a source for that? I thought they are doing fine.
  - 13years 3y ago
    They are doing fine for the casual user and you can't beat the price. However, as I started using it more professionally a few years ago, there are some real problems with long standing bugs in some areas. My biggest complain at the moment is Art Boards. I use them for almost all my work. Allows me to work much faster when working on a suite of related projects. However, they are the most broken of all features. Probably half of all the Affinity photo live effects are broken in art boards. Also, not sure which is worse, Affinity or the users. I've opened so many bugs on art boards, to have users push back and say it is not a bug and then Affinity ignores it. They say it is not a bug because most don't use art boards as they never grasp the use case.
    - junon 3y ago
      This is also my experience. The forums were dismal, everything is "That's not a bug". Sorry, but exporting images from designer that are incredibly blurry for no reason is a bug. Please try explaining resolution to me again, I swear I still didn't understand it after the first few game engines I've made.
      - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
        Photo also degrades images by blurring them. You see it when you’re building a composition and merging layers as you go; the underlying image gets blurrier and blurrier. Photo simply can’t be trusted not to ruin your work. This has come up repeatedly in the forums as new users discover it. And yep, the apologists cried and thrashed, issuing one ridiculous excuse after another. Even someone from Affinity. I wish someone there would teach me about layer blending. I still don’t get it after building high-end compositing software for film.
- 13years 3y ago
  > their developers have posted very publicly about being miserable there. Just curious, do you have a reference? I've complained on the forums for years about the bugs and Affinity never responds. As I've been using it for years, I figured out how to work around many bugs, but it is a field of landmines for sure. It is indeed disappointing as it offers the best workflow for the kind of work I do.
  - junon 3y ago
    Their Glassdoor and some Twitter accounts I followed, it's been years though. Plus if you've ever interacted on their forums their mods are really pushy and dismissive.
    - 13years 3y ago
      > forums their mods are really pushy and dismissive Yes I agree. I argued with them at length about having a real process for handling bugs that is transparent. They have no method of evaluating the need or priority of anything as they rely only on their forum. Basically somewhat the gist is that some time ago Affinity decided due to a lot of negative complaints they simply will be less transparent about everything so that nobody could complain. The result of course was obvious, all complaints became about the lack of transparency. Which also resulted in many content creators dropping Affinity because they felt the product didn't have a future as no more communication from the company. So there went their free advertising as well. Terrible management decisions for sure.

benterix 3y ago

> their development has slowed significantly in recent years despite having a great product. Did they comment on why this happened?

13years 3y ago
They have not, although I expect it is simply a matter of expanding their products over the years, technical debt and they probably have not generated enough revenue to grow the team. They are now working on the most important feature in my opinion for the life of Affinity products. They are finally adding built in scripting support that will also enable development of 3rd part extensions. Hopefully this will bring new life and excitement to Affinity.

junon 3y ago

Affinity is mismanaged and their developers have posted very publicly about being miserable there. The applications are buggy on a good day, unusable on bad days. The premise sounded nice when I first started using them but I cannot in good conscience recommend either of them to anyone at this point.

jansan 3y ago
Can you give a source for that? I thought they are doing fine.
- 13years 3y ago
  They are doing fine for the casual user and you can't beat the price. However, as I started using it more professionally a few years ago, there are some real problems with long standing bugs in some areas. My biggest complain at the moment is Art Boards. I use them for almost all my work. Allows me to work much faster when working on a suite of related projects. However, they are the most broken of all features. Probably half of all the Affinity photo live effects are broken in art boards. Also, not sure which is worse, Affinity or the users. I've opened so many bugs on art boards, to have users push back and say it is not a bug and then Affinity ignores it. They say it is not a bug because most don't use art boards as they never grasp the use case.
  - junon 3y ago
    This is also my experience. The forums were dismal, everything is "That's not a bug". Sorry, but exporting images from designer that are incredibly blurry for no reason is a bug. Please try explaining resolution to me again, I swear I still didn't understand it after the first few game engines I've made.
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      Photo also degrades images by blurring them. You see it when you’re building a composition and merging layers as you go; the underlying image gets blurrier and blurrier. Photo simply can’t be trusted not to ruin your work. This has come up repeatedly in the forums as new users discover it. And yep, the apologists cried and thrashed, issuing one ridiculous excuse after another. Even someone from Affinity. I wish someone there would teach me about layer blending. I still don’t get it after building high-end compositing software for film.
13years 3y ago
> their developers have posted very publicly about being miserable there. Just curious, do you have a reference? I've complained on the forums for years about the bugs and Affinity never responds. As I've been using it for years, I figured out how to work around many bugs, but it is a field of landmines for sure. It is indeed disappointing as it offers the best workflow for the kind of work I do.
- junon 3y ago
  Their Glassdoor and some Twitter accounts I followed, it's been years though. Plus if you've ever interacted on their forums their mods are really pushy and dismissive.
  - 13years 3y ago
    > forums their mods are really pushy and dismissive Yes I agree. I argued with them at length about having a real process for handling bugs that is transparent. They have no method of evaluating the need or priority of anything as they rely only on their forum. Basically somewhat the gist is that some time ago Affinity decided due to a lot of negative complaints they simply will be less transparent about everything so that nobody could complain. The result of course was obvious, all complaints became about the lack of transparency. Which also resulted in many content creators dropping Affinity because they felt the product didn't have a future as no more communication from the company. So there went their free advertising as well. Terrible management decisions for sure.